We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Tuesday, October 20. 2015

Not really. No doubt these agencies and people hope to do good, but they view "poverty" through Western, materialist eyes. Many people do not know that they are poor and deprived until Westerners tell them that they are because they lack refrigerators and large-screen TVs . (See Eskimos as a case in point.)

I am not talking about famine and the like, just about normal times in subsistence pre-industrial areas with pre-industrial societies. Isn't there a condescending assumption that these brown people cannot figure out their lives by themselves? Why do Westerners wish to intrude on these peoples' lives and cultures? I suppose the Asians and Westerners have done so already through our desire for their natural resources, though, especially in Africa.

“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

The only known way to bring the common man, as opposed to one who gains power over others through violence, out of poverty is the protecting their liberty to retain and invest their earnings over subsistence in their own betterment by providing goods and services that better their fellow man.

Secure private property rights and laissez faire capitalism for the lowest of society instead of restricting it to the cronies and minions of murderous political leaders

Always note how much a charity alots for its expenses. The United Jewish Appeal prides itself in distributing at least 95% of what it raises. And also find out how much the executives and their relatives pay themselves including expense accounts.

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